Italy respectful of Cuba with merciless shutout

Rome: Reigning Olympic and Volleyball Nations League champions Italy showed no signs of underestimating their 2025 FIVB Volleyball Women’s World Championship rivals Cuba in Thailand on Sunday and hammered out a landslide victory over their opponents to top the Pool B standings in Phuket with a perfect record after two matches.

Italy’s star opposite Paola Egonu played only in the first two sets of the game, just like another four of her teammates, but managed to top the scoring charts of the match with 12 points towards a 3-0 (25-9, 25-8, 25-16) shutout. She spiked at a 67% success rate, fired two aces and raised two kill blocks.

“Playing at your best is the way to show respect to other teams. I am really proud, because in a game like that maybe you go down mentally, but we were able to keep up from the start to the end. That’s what we practice for, so we are really happy when we can achieve it.”

Overall, Italy showed great efficiency in offense, as coach Julio Velasco’s squad achieved a 57% success rate in spiking. However, no other player reached the double digits in this game. Italy’s middle blocker and captain Anna Danesi authored three of the team’s 13 kill blocks and one of the team’s six aces to finish with eight points, matching the count of Cuba’s most prolific scorer, 22-year-old opposite Dezirett De La Caridad Madan.